|
Bikies get record jail terms
February 28, 2005 - 4:40PM
Two members of NSW and Queensland chapters of an outlaw bikie gang were handed
record jail terms by a Sydney court for the manufacture and supply of speed.
Richard James Walsh, 33, received a sentence of 32 years for supplying about 450
kilograms of the drug between March 1997 and his arrest in September 2001.
Todd Douglas Little, 38, received a maximum 22 year sentence for manufacturing
and supplying 19 kilograms of amphetamine in the two years to September 1999.
Both had pleaded guilty to all the charges against them in the NSW Supreme
Court.
Walsh was a senior member of the Nomads Motorcycle Club's Newcastle chapter,
supplying gang members and their associates with speed.
Little, a key member of the Nomads' Gold Coast chapter, operated a drug
laboratory on the NSW north coast.
Justice Roderick Howie said it was the most serious case of its kind he knew of.
Had it not been for his guilty plea, Walsh would have received the maximum life
sentence, he said.
Howie jailed Walsh for up to 32 years for supplying drugs, and for 13 years and
eight months for other matters, including firearms offences.
Little was sentenced to a maximum 22 years for making and supplying drugs, as
well as another four years and nine months for firearms offences.
Walsh and Little will be eligible for parole in 2025 and 2018 respectively.
Outside the court, Detective Inspector Wayne Gordon, who led the police
investigation, said the sentence sent a message that drug dealing would not be
tolerated.
"To my knowledge the sentences handed down today are the most lengthy in the
nation's history for this type of criminality with outlaw motorcycle gangs," he
said.
